Remarriage, Polygamy, and Jesus’ Teaching on Divorce: Chastity, Adultery, and the One Flesh Union in the Old and New Testaments

All my books can be read online free at WayneODonnell.com. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Mt. 10:8). This booklet is included in and comprises a section of my book “The Special Ministries of Women: Pro-Headcovering, Pro-Remarriage in 1 Corinthians 11, Song of Solomon, and Jesus' Teaching on Divorce.”

This booklet is about the one-flesh union and its implications for chastity, adultery, polygamy, divorce, and remarriage. Our modern egalitarian culture has caused people to misunderstand the Biblical definition of adultery and Jesus’ teaching about divorce and remarriage; which has resulted in untold amounts of suffering over the centuries. Most modern Bible teachers let their culture determine their interpretation of the Bible, instead of letting the Bible determine their evaluation of our culture.

Men that teach divorces are invalid if they’re made for invalid reasons, teach exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches. The Bible says “She may go and be another man’s wife” (Deut. 24:1-2), but they say she can’t go and be another man’s wife. The Bible says “to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband,” but they say most divorced people can’t ever have a husband or wife. The Bible says, “If they can’t contain, let them marry,” but they say don’t let them marry. The Bible says “marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled” (Heb. 13:4), but they say marriage is not honorable and undefiled for most people who remarry. The ‘invalid divorce’ teachers cause the same kind of harm as those that “depart from the faith, ... forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4:3), because they forbid the use of God’s provision for avoiding fornication.